Toric contact lenses are known for use in correcting the lens wearer's corneal or lenticular astigmatism. Typically, one surface of the lens, the non-toric surface, is spherical and the second lens surface, the toric surface incorporates cylinder power along an axis of between 0° and 180° in increments of about 5° or 10°. The lens' cylinder power must remain substantially aligned with the wearer's axis of astigmatism while the lens is on eye to provide good visual acuity. Thus, a toric lens requires a stabilization feature, such as prism ballast, thick and thin zones, or the like on one of the lens' surfaces to maintain lens alignment on-eye.
In conventional toric contact lens manufacturing processes, one of the mold halves forming the mold is angularly rotated in relation to the other mold half so that the desired toric axis orientation to stabilization features is obtained when the lens material is cured within the mold. However, this method is disadvantageous in that one mold half is relatively unsecured and is free to shift away from the desired position. Additionally, in processes in which one mold half is rotated, typically this same mold half is used to produce a family of stock-keeping units (“SKUs”) of lenses. Thus, the mold half cannot be optimized for any one of the SKUs, but must be adjusted to achieve best performance throughout the range of SKUs produced using the mold half.